


the lack of super

by leovaldez



Series: We Could Be Heroes [5]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kissing, M/M, Past Character Death, Vigilante AU, like they're just 18/19 and stuff lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:08:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27627940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leovaldez/pseuds/leovaldez
Summary: Jason and Leo have a habit of jumping off buildings for fun. Or at least they used to. Leo has his doubts now.(vigilante/superhero au)
Relationships: Jason Grace/Leo Valdez
Series: We Could Be Heroes [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020228
Comments: 13
Kudos: 50
Collections: We Could Be Heroes Expanded





	the lack of super

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [vigilantes don't date](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591377) by [blackpercy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackpercy/pseuds/blackpercy). 



> hi simi 💕
> 
> anyway so i'm doing this thing, where I ask for a number, and give like, a word association to the fic in my head, and the first number chosen was #1 which was super, aka this fic lol... cause idk I thought superhero... in this case, the lack of super (hence the title that I just thought up just now lmao)
> 
> since it's based off simi's au, I DID ask her for some more info but like, it's not even that important. just the important thing is that jason has powers, and leo doesn't lol, and leo has previously died before. 💀 but if u read simi's fic u would know that, so read that first, because it chronologically comes first anyway lol

“Do you trust me?”

“If I had to be honest,” Leo trains his eyes below them. “No.”

“Good. So let- wait, what?” From the corner of his peripheral vision, Leo sees Jason’s boots back up. Leo stays rooted where he is, stance strong as the wind blows against them. Jason keeps holding hands with him and pulls on his arm as he went through his melodramatic nonsense. 

“Why don’t you trust me?” Jason’s asking him, voice edging on whining.

Leo’s eyes stay glued to the dark alley below them. They chose a building not too far from the McLean’s house in the middle of LA. The problem is that they were also about 30 stories up. One wrong move and they would need to be scrapped off the cement like chewed gum. Leo ignores the tremble in his knees.

“Leo,” Jason says.

“What?”

“Why don’t you trust me?” He swings their joint hands. Jason steps back onto the ledge. His toes creep out over the space, and for a moment, Leo thinks Jason is going to jump. Leo’s heart leaps to his throat, but Jason merely sighs and looks at him. Jason nudges him. “Come on, Leo. What’s up?”

They aren’t wearing any gear or costumes, so Leo can see as much of Jason’s face as the emergency lights on the rooftop let him. They’ve been on rooftops like this many times earlier, but this is still a first time in some way.

Leo used to feel glee at being able to run and leap across the gaps between buildings. He used to enjoy feeling this wind, and laughing with Jason and Piper, as they ran through the city. He’s older now. Jason’s hand feels warmer than it ever had. He is... older now. 

Second chance. Leo was the one who was lucky enough to die and gasp back to life. It took him a while to adjust, and sometimes he still remembers being ripped out of whatever the hell came next and being dragged into his flesh again. Some days he stares at his hands, thinking about how his tendons didn’t pull quite right, and maybe his nerves had been cut, or he swears his bones grated against each other. 

But he’s fine. Leo is fine. Or at least alive. He is... alive. 

The worst part of it was that his death wasn’t even Jason’s fault. Like, sure, maybe some part of it _was_ , but when Leo places the events together in his mind, when he slips that convoluted timeline in his head together, Leo couldn’t really blame Jason. Or Piper, for that matter, but she wears her guilt like her secret identity, while Jason might as well be wearing a bright traffic cone screaming he’s sorry. 

It is kinda annoying, actually. Leo could tell him everything was okay, but Jason’s stupid enough- smart enough, kind enough, whatever- to not believe him. But like this right now... this is all Leo. 

He curls his other hand. His fingernails are cut short, dirt and dried blood underneath from sparring. He needed to train so hard to keep up with the other two, and even then, Leo fell back. The hand gripping Jason’s is still very warm. 

Leo feels silly. He died almost three years ago. He should be fine. He is fine. Totally, wholly, completely fine. Leo stares down the alley. All he can see is him plummeting and dying over and over and _over-_

“We don’t have to do it,” Jason says instead. Leo can tell that Jason doesn’t get it because they _have_ been on rooftops like this before, they’ve done some risky crap, and Leo’s never been afraid of stuff like this before. 

But also Leo died three years ago. That is something that will never change, but why does it matter now?

Leo knows logically that when he and Jason jump, they’ll free fall for a few gorgeous seconds, and Jason will focus in, building up that pressure in the wind to catch them, and they’ll stumble into the ground. They’ve done it before countless amount of times. Jason’s perfected it, so it’s not like when they were thirteen and slamming into fire escapes and shoving each other into dumpsters. Plus, Leo’s been leaping buildings during chases since his death. 

It might be because it’s for fun this time, then. He could really die being stupid. Leo could really jump off this building with Jason, and somehow things fuck up again, and Leo gets to die all over because he’s such a stupid little kid with no powers and no faith. Leo could _really_ die. 

Could Leo do that again? Could Leo handle that again? His knees buckle.

“Hey,” Jason’s voice breaks into him, sounding very concerned. “Leo. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Leo says, and he feels like he’s breathing for the first time like he’s just come back, and he’s coughing out dripping death from his lungs again. He experimentally uncurls his hand, and it feels like his own. 

“You can talk to me, you know,” Jason tells him. “You _can_ trust me.”

“I know,” Leo sticks his foot out in front of him. In the dark, his Nikes glare back at him. Leo can curl his toes, and he feels grounded despite being suspended hundreds of feet in the air. “I do- did. I will,” Leo winces. “It’s complicated.”

Jason’s hood is pulled over his head, but it flaps in the wind with his hair. He’s not wearing his glasses, so Leo can see the crinkle in his nose and the way his eyes are darker with the lights behind him. 

“Are you sure you’re good?” Jason asks again and then raises their joint hands. “You’re kinda squeezing the life out of me.”

Oh God, does Leo wish Jason didn’t say that, but Leo pushes back nausea and stares at the amount of pressure he didn’t realize he was applying to their hands. Jason’s strong and can handle it, but maybe that’s because Leo is weak and useless. 

“If you don’t want to talk about it, then that’s cool too.”

Leo stares at their hands. “There’s nothing to talk about. Let’s get this over with. Recreate our teen memories and crap.” Leo thinks a little more, and he says what he thinks Jason wants to hear: “I _do_ trust you, you know. You’re my best friend and boyfriend. Why wouldn’t I?”

Because it wasn’t really a trusting-Jason issue. Can Leo trust himself to not slip up and die? Can Leo trust his body, that didn’t feel quite fitted right even now, and ignore his urge to run?

Jason gives him big eyes. He kisses Leo’s knuckles, and their hands drop. Jason kisses him again, this time on the lips, and leans back on his heels. “Okay, so we’ll jump like old times then. It’s all you, Leo.”

He’s given control. Leo doesn’t know if he wants that yet. He stares down the alley. He can jump; he’s done it a million times before. 

“Okay,” Leo’s feet move forward. He feels fear he hasn’t felt since he was 13, he feels death whispering in his ear, he feels Jason’s burning hand and the wind seeping through his sweats. “Let’s go.”

And he jumps, closing his eyes, and screams because he fears death in a way he never did. It is hard to remember, when Leo’s friends with Piper and Jason, that Leo is still human, still vulnerable, still able to fall apart so quickly because he’s weak. 

Jason catches him, the way he’s done a million times, and their feet fall to the ground. Jason huffs and grins at him, looking up at the height they fell. His cheeks are flushed with excitement, and Leo is sent back to when they were 13 and jumping just because, and back then, Leo felt like he _was_ invincible. But now, his knees are threatening to collapse, and his mind is losing it, and he is trying not to fall over and cry. 

“See?” Jason’s anxious to do it again; Leo can see it all over his face. He kisses Leo’s cheek. “Not so bad, right? Wanna try again?”

Leo knows Jason could die too. His powers didn’t include immortality. But he just didn’t understand death the way Leo did, he didn’t get what it was like to perpetually think _I’m just an average person_. The vigilante shit they did made it easy to forget that, but for Leo, for the past few years, almost three since he died and came back, that was _all_ Leo could think. He hated it.

“Sure,” Leo found himself saying, plastering on a matching grin. Jason whooped and grabbed his hand, and they jogged to the stairs to do it all over again.

**Author's Note:**

> simi is allegedly gonna build more to this au so I'm gonna leave that up to her now, she's so talented ugh. I'm not really sure why I wrote this like I even knew how leo died or their prior relationship LMAO I just makeup facts and act like it's legit... does this fic even make sense lmao
> 
> anyway, man does this send me back to that superhero au i kinda wrote, jason was tempest and leo was pyro, and I literally called it tempyro like lmao
> 
> anyway, my tumblr is @[bunkernine](https://bunkernine.tumblr.com/) if u want to talk to me here or there. but if u got questions about the au, ask simi cause like, I know just as much as u do bro lmao
> 
> have a good one 💕


End file.
